Cabana Covent Garden: Bottomless Brunch Done Properly!

There are bottomless brunches, and then there are bottomless brunches that make you wonder why you’ve spent so many years putting up with mediocre food and sad, sugary cocktails just in the name of a celebration. It’s the easy the go to for a girls get together and yet most of the time, the venues that offer it make me wrinkle my nose a little… It’s just all too often that they are done to make money with little customer satisfaction in mind and that has kind of been responsible for me not putting my hand up when one’s suggested. The thing I always think is, they seem to take advantage of knowing you’ll be in a big group and are unlikely to complain.

And then you once in a while find a gem who know how to do it properly. Good food, great drinks, perfect service and instead of racing to drink as many cocktails as you can because they’re weak and you have to get your money’s worth, you’re saying “No, I’d better not have another because these things are lethally and impressively good” – Quantity, over quality and that’s exactly as I’d choose it to be!

Cabana in Covent Garden is very much the latter. Thank goodness, as my oldest friend and I were on a very long overdue night out and we really can’t be doing with sticky dance floors and rubbish quality anything these days. We had a night at the Secret Comedy Club on Drury Lane because we were due lots of laughter and frankly, the draw to that was not their boast of having the cheapest bar in central London because we are way past that era. For us peri meno, middle aged mums, that really isn’t the flex it used to be and we wanted classy cocktails, with good food as a builder to the night where we ended up laughing the whole time, before, during and after the comedy club. The before, began at Cabana and wowsers, five of those cocktails was more than enough! We tried everything on the menu, of course!

But I’m getting ahead of myself… First things should come first, I’m sorry I led with the drinks but they were so good, I had to. But back to Cabana and the location is gorgeous. It’s actually just a short stroll from Tottenham Court Road station rather than CG itself, so really easy to get to, and once you are inside it feels like you are right in the heart of everything chic in London.

The setting is glorious. There are huge windows which give you the perfect opportunity to people watch while London goes by outside, and inside you are surrounded by gorgeous plants and beautiful decor which fits the whole Cabana vibe perfectly. It is the sort of place where you can sit with a cocktail and happily watch the world go by for hours. But bottomless is on a time scale, 90 minutes and ordinarily I’d say that was more than enough, I like to be in and out of a restaurant however, while it was enough time to eat and drink, we literally could have stayed all night and totally sacked the comedy off, alas… That’s not how it works!

£45 is what a bottomless brunch costs at Cabana and I have to say, I was seriously impressed, especially with the food!

Like I said, I have a bit of a complicated relationship with bottomless brunches. I love the idea of them, obviously, but with so many that focus on quantity over quality when it comes to the drinks, and the other problem being that the food has either been terrible quality or completely inconsequential it really does put me off. If I’m out, I want good food above anything else!

At Cabana, the food was incredible. Honestly, so good my friend was already texting some of her other friends to re-book for a gathering they are having. And I will do the same. The food hits every good mark of the cocktails and that’s the real measure for me!

We started with a sharing platter and then had our mains. I went for the halloumi burger and upgraded it to include chicken (because I am greedy and wanted to see if it was worth the extra money at £9.50). I absolutely did not need it, and can report it was entirely unnecessary in terms of volume, but it was good and I’d do it again!

My friend had the steak and she, like me, loved the accompanying fries, which were absolutely to die for. They were perfectly cooked, plentiful and exactly what we needed after all those cocktails.

And this is the thing.

While I always say that I would much rather pay more for a proper meal and a couple of really good drinks than take advantage of a bottomless brunch deal where the drinks are mediocre and the food is an afterthought, now that I know Cabana has somehow managed to combine the two, why would I go anywhere else?! There are places in Norwich which I would have considered before, just for the event of it if everyone else was going, but Cabana have raised that bar… Now that the standard is set, I don’t intend to go to a lower class bottomless brunch again!

In central London, five really good cocktails could easily cost more than the £45 brunch price on their own and even with the add-ons like the upgrade I had or paying £5 for dessert (I’m kicking myself that we didn’t now) I’d still say you’d be hard pressed to get anything like that anywhere else.

I think I will be annoyed I couldn’t fit the churros for dessert in for ages, one of those things that makes you go whyyyyy?! I love churros! But honestly, that’s a very good problem to have, right?!

The service was fantastic, the atmosphere was brilliant and the food matched the setting perfectly and the final plus point is that bottomless brunch can happen in the evening. Why does brunch have to finish at 3pm anyway?

At Cabana, Covent Garden, the weekend bottomless offering runs from 5pm until 9pm on Friday, from 12pm until 5pm and then again from 8pm until 9pm on Saturday, and from 12pm until 7.30pm on Sunday.

And I am very much here for that!

I went to Cabana expecting a fun bottomless brunch and left thinking that I had actually had a proper meal, proper cocktails and a properly good time feeling like it’s a bit of a steal actually and we would absolutely go again! There are a few different menu options if you don’t fancy a bottomless, and I would imagine they’d be super family friendly too. Great spot, so glad we’ve found it!